a separate
by Constance Greene
Summary: This will separate me from you forever; but I’ll be with you. Always. — SoraKairi


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for :: Gray-Rain Skies' challenge.  
look I made a **kaiora** for you ftwz. ♥♥  
BE PROUD, BECAUSE I AM!  
'snot au though, sorry. I suck at that. x(

lyrics used :: _look after you_ by the fray  
-- one of the bestest songs, yeah.

thanks to Tatikara for beta-ing. ♥  
reviews are both loved & appreciated.

disclaimer :: yeah, yeah.

···¤

a··s e p a r a t e  
( _pictures of you & me ;;_ )

Pictures.

Pictures of Her.

They blinked past his eyes, his big blue ( _gigantic_ _and_ _enormous with pain and fear _) eyes like watching a movie of his/Her life in an innocuous theatre. Nothing wrong with that. _Something_ wrong with _this_.

They say that your life flashes in front of you before you die ( _Who's 'They?'_ He would have spiritedly chirruped if on any other occasion ), but they hadn't warned him about . . . about a-separation. He felt not his broken and aching body but the odd sense of being in too many different places at once. And he was no god – omnipresence wasn't a skill Merlyn had taught him before.

_If I don't say this now  
__I will surely break_

They were falling apart from each other, not metaphorically but physically. He saw her hand waver – smooth, white, and delicate – but for Gods sakes he couldn't _catch it. _So instead he read the desperate plea marking her face and mirrored it on his own. He cupped his hands ( that couldn't catch, couldn't hold ) around his mouth and bellowed what he hoped would carry to her ears just in time before they both fell apart from each other permanently.

"_Kairi, I love you!"_

_And I _will_ come back to you. I **promise**._

_As I'm leaving the one  
__I want to take  
__Forgive the urgency but  
__Hurry up and wait_

He had nearly died once before. Sora recalled it as a blur of motion; however deliberate, the memory still frightened him. But it wasn't because he was afraid of death as the concept – if pain lets you know you're alive, then you wouldn't feel its presence in death. The fear of leaving those he loved behind – _that _was what birthed his phobia.

_Death, death, it's a pain; it puts you out of the game and it's to blame._

His spur-of-the-moment rhyme caused him to laugh a little. Not a lot but a little. It was sort of difficult to with his lungs caving in on him every second he drew in a breath.

Death wasn't so bad when you were doing it for the one you loved. He was sacrificing himself for the other princesses, yes, but for Her as well. The thought of her living if he died, after she had been in a comatose state, reassured him so he was able to plunge the keyblade into his heart and terminate his entity's lifespan.

_My heart has started to separate_

As he fell back, being lured into the ever-sleep of unconsciousness, he sensed a peculiar detachment within him. It was as if his soul had just departed from his body, and yet Sora was still dimly aware of the world surrounding him. He had found Kairi, fought the Riku imposter, taken the keyblade ( _"This Keyblade holds the power to unlock people's hearts_,_"_ he had said, like some romantic prophet ) and . . . stabbed himself with it? Then, then –

Then, darkness. No more Her.

But somehow, she had come back. And he was holding Her. Burying his face into her rose-coloured hair and breathing in the scent of Her light and airy perfume.

_Oh, oh, oh Oh, oh, oh be my baby  
__Oh, oh, oh I'll look after you_

"_Take care of Her,"_ Riku had said. Well, he had tried. He had tried with all his not-quite heart. But there had been distractions – Organization XIII, for instance. The ones who had taken her into the blackened core of their city built of sin and void and locked her up in a dungeon. That fact made him loathe them _more_, until it was a raw rage that fired his very passion.

( _"Are you angry? Then take that rage, and direct it at the Heartless." _)

He hadn't followed the Nobody's advice – not completely, anyway. While whip lashing dark forms right and left, so many that it made his head whirl, he thought of Kairi and knowing that she was still alive seemed to calm him. _I'm fighting for you. I'll come for you soon; just wait for me, okay?_

_When I'm losing my control,  
__The city spins around  
__You're the only one  
__Who knows, you slow it down_

Reunited again – he didn't have to rescue Her, after all. Her taller build ( though still so slight and petite ) said _I can take care of myself._ But it was all talk. She had a strong heart, sure. ( _But when did that save you from the Heartless. When did that keep you from losing yourself._ )

Embracing Her with a sigh of finality, he knew that she still needed him. She had run to find him, after all.

_It's always have and never hold  
__You've begun to feel like home_

When he had sunken into the sea and then emerged from the water, he had seen Her. _I didn't lose her after all. She's still here. I didn't leave her. I came back for Her and we'll live together forever, happily ever after, and all that good stuff. _

( _"You're home." _)

However, the epoch of peace didn't last for long.

¤···

He didn't like to hear her scream.

Such a waste of breath. He'd rather have her singing joyously with her celestial voice or whispering love-sayings in the cup of his ear. Dancing instead of running, stumbling, tripping in urgency and shock.

She had seen the blood pooling under his crumpled body, lying out flat on the asphalt road. Before doing anything else she dragged him down the sandy dune and away from the street that wasn't so busy this time of day, or any time of day, really.

_Ow, _Sora thought off-handedly. _This is really starting to hurt. _

If the car had hit him with more force, the impact would have been greater and he would have almost died instantly. Instead, the wheels had gone over the lower half of his body, only grazing the bottom of his lungs. Even with his face pressed onto the road and eating bitter dust, he knew what had happened. It was an odd fact, but it seemed to be a necessity. Like he was _supposed_ to know how his fate turned out. _Creepy, though not much. I think this is relatively the least of it. _

Kairi leaned over him, and he assumed the moisture splashing onto his face was not rain but her tears. "Oh my God. Ohmygod, Sora . . . _Sora._" Her hands reached for her face as if she could escape this nightmare by covering her eyes.

"Bad luck, I guess," He put out jokingly, his speech halting as abruptly as it started when his jaw locked. _This is the part where it becomes exceedingly difficult to breathe. _

Bad luck indeed. Who knew a harmless afternoon walk would turn into a death sentence?

The redhead fingered his hair back, damp with perspiration. He winced slightly, closing his eyes and letting a light moan escape from his throat.

Seeing his pain, Kairi's face contorted into sorrow. It appeared as if she was enduring far more suffering than he was. If he had seen her when he had disappeared years ago from her arms, he would understand the expression.

( "_I won't let him go!"_ )

He sensed Riku dashing towards them and yelling in staccato barks, having just seen Sora's ruined body on the ground. He was saying that he was going to call an ambulance, and for Sora not to worry, just hang on tight.

Unable to help herself, Kairi bent down and brushed her lips against Sora's. When she rose, she had a smear of blood staining her candy pink lips. He wasn't all that surprised when she didn't do the natural thing and wipe it away. _I love you, Kairi._

Instead of fresh tears springing into his eyes, he only seemed to be able to cry crimson rivers down his cheeks. _My God, I'm crying my own blood._

"Dumb teenagers," He sputtered amiably, though with a hiss of ironic contempt. Choking on the last syllable, another bubble of blood formed at the corner of his mouth. He tried to hitch in enough air and strength to cough, but his breath only whistled dully from his flattened lungs.

Most likely, the ones who had run him over hadn't been from the islands. It made the hit and run all more realistic.

Sora remembered when he had tried to drive his parents' car for the first time. Permission had not been granted, but he forced Kairi and Riku into accompanying him anyway. "You can take over if I'm about to crash," He had told Riku and allowed him to chuckle, but Riku only retreated to the back of the car in little more than a hurry. Sora's nighttime joy rides were full of driving too fast and having his friends scream at him while he nearly careened off the road ( and certainly straying over the lines in great, heaping yards ). Once he had almost hit a kid on a trike but he had swerved away just in time.

"_Sora, LOOK OUT!_"

Riku's warning was all he needed to swing the wheel forcibly to the side while Kairi clutched her seat and screamed endlessly and shrilly. He avoided the wandering youth by a foot or more.

"Jesus Sora, don't do that again." His older friend had finally said after they sat in the stopped car, trembling from the great shock of fear that had slammed into their faces minutes before. They had all laughed nervously about it afterwards, but in the end, Sora subconsciously agreed to take Drivers Ed courses and leave his friends out of it from then and on.

Kairi was laughing while she wept, cradling his spiky head on her lap. She began to rock slowly back and forth, murmuring unintelligible words and babble. Her dark hair cascaded down her hung head and caressed his face, and he was able to catch another brief whiff of her flowery perfume again, though with effort. _Any more dilly-dallying will take my breath away. Forever._

Good thing they didn't dilly-dally.

"That's okay, Kairi. T-that's okay." He whispered, wanting to reach out and pat her encouragingly on the back, wanting to stifle those sobs and still those tears. "We'll just be a-separate for now." He gently let his eyes slid shut and a tranquilizing peace lapsed over him.

"_No_." Said she hoarsely, taking him by the shoulders and trying to jerk him back awake. Her brief and sudden act of harshness caused her to fall back again and cry more helplessly. "I don't want you to l-_leave _me again, S-_Sora_ . . ." She paused, pulling in her lower lip and staring at him with her big blue ( _gigantic and enormous with pain and fear _) eyes in a desperate plea. "I love you."

His eyelids flew up momentarily at her vow, and the corners of his lips twitched into what could have been a diminished smile. "I love you too, doll."

( _Kairi. Kairi kairi kairikairikairi _)

_You're going to have to take care of yourself now, I'm sorry. I didn't want it to end up this way, but at least I still have your love to keep me company in the afterlife._

Kairi touched her fingertips to her lips, and then smoothed them out over his brow. At first relaxed, he tensed visibly. "You don't have to hold on anymore, Sora," She whispered.

Using his last ounce of strength, Sora spoke up clearly and nearly unhindered by exhaustion.

"You'll be in my heart. Always."

In the great distance, he heard her sob. Sirens . . .

Pictures fade. They faded away. One by one they blinked out of existence as his vision failed to cooperate.

Even the lovely pictures of Her.

_What's mine is yours to leave or take  
__What's mine is yours to make your own_


End file.
